Noises all Around Us

Noises all Around Us ©

By

Michael Casey

I was wondering what to talk about tonight, and it is 9.45pm so I need to hurry on if I’m going to write anything tonight. Then as I’ve got a ringing in my ear, and I can hear my wife screaming in Shanghai dialect to her friends on her phone I thought maybe I should talk about noises all around us. Yes my Ukrainian and Polish friends it’s as scientific as that, I am the English teacher making myself groan, oh please Sir no that, can’t we just write about Cadbury’s chocolate? Please Sir, we’ll even do an extra 300 words if you left us write about that, I beg myself.

No my Mexican friends, my Canadian friends and all points on the compass, tonight we talk about noises. And if you are my friends in Kuwait who send me emails about horses, you too have to talk about noises. Even if they are just noises in your head as The Cranberries are singing to me right now. Zombie, zombie. And no, no writing about Farting, yes I know it’s a noise but gentlemen don’t talk about such things, and ladies certainly don’t.

I don’t want a 300 word intro about bathroom noises. Not after yesterday when my daughter lost something down the plughole, it’s too sore a topic a subject in our house right now. I will help you all, I was an Esol English teacher for a year after all, though with a Shanghai wife, I’ve been giving 20 years of English lessons in the home as well.

Before I side-track myself I want you all to close your eyes, trust me, just close your eyes. Nobody is going to steal a kiss, or pinch your bum, beside you are in an army barracks reading this, so I imagine that kind of thing does not go on in an army. Not unless you are in a bar tidying up after closing. Close your eyes and listen. What can you hear? Me, I can hear trapped air in my ear, with The Cranberries singing softly in the background, the shouting Shanghai wife in the next room has stopped for the evening.

But what about in Singapore? Can you hear a tap dripping, though I expect not as water is so sacred in Singapore. Can you hear the distant noise of music, or the crash and bang of your neighbours screaming and fighting. It’s a sign and sound of passion if there is a bit of fighting, the screaming ends and then there is the silence of passion. Proof arrives 9 months later. Then there is the sound of babies crying.

In Spain you may hear your neighbours practicing the Flamenco on the roof, why don’t they just wear slippers when they dance, or use virtual reality to practice with. Technology and Flamenco, there’s an idea for the Tech conference in USA this week.

If you are my next door neighbour you will hear me typing very fast and talking to Totoro our cat, punctuated by me getting a drink or going to the bathroom. Normal sounds if you live next door to this writer. You’ll also hear me suddenly screaming as a spasm of pain arrives unwanted and unexpectedly. You may also hear the sound of slapping, no not the wife slapping me for being naughty. No just the sound of me slapping pain killer gel, Movelat on various bits of my body. 

Rather like the Lederhosen dancers slapping each other. What my next door neighbour thinks of the sound, you’ll have to ask her. Perhaps she just thinks I’m Kinky and Strange, I know just as you my readers the world over do. You are so cruel to me, listen to my bitter bitter tears now, as they slash onto my floor.

The sound of the kettle boiling is a nice sound, it is so welcoming, so full of sharing, we’ll all have a tea, or coffee for me, and hot chocolate for Micha. 

Wherever you are in the world a kettle with a whistle is best, come in you are welcome, enjoy Egypt’s coffee or tea, in Italy too a nice drink to match the view.

Grannie’s toothless singing rings out as you study for your exams, she’s put a hot drink besides you before she disappears. The sliding slippers flip and flop into the distance. She always told you to do your best, please yourself with what you studied. Her singing ends, the flip and the flop fades, and then one day it ended forever. Now you are a Professor, you still have a hot drink on the corner of your now enormous desk, with a picture of grannie in a silver frame. Sometimes when you are over tired you can hear your grannie singing and hear the flip and the flop of her slippers fading into the distance.

Sounds do fade, but memories do not. I can still remember my mother chiding me, and scolding me, she’d hit me with the mop if I walked on her clean floor. I can still member all the love, all the laughter. I can remember the drinks after we’d all watch a film together at the weekend. 

I can clearly remember her saying that ending of the film was “far-fetched like sh** from China” if the ending of a film was rubbish. This means beyond belief I should perhaps explain to my Chinese readers wherever you may be in the world. It’s like a Shanghai audience saying the film ending was so bad it was “far-fetched like sh** from Birmingham” So all of us can laugh together because I ended up marrying not just a China doll, but a Shanghai girl. And as everybody knows Shanghai sings, loudly. 

So goodnight wherever you all are, whatever are the noises in your world, have a PEACEFUL life.  

 p.s. you just missed the sound of me slapping on the Movelat to take away my pain, its not funny at all...